[Hidden-tech] Northampton City Municipal Network

[Robert Heller]

At Mon, 5 Feb 2018 10:27:10 -0500 ussailis at shaysnet.com wrote:

> 
> Good idea, but...
> 
> I have been told that Verizon has fiber already in place, just not to the
> home.
> 
> Apparently those central office (CO) boxes on the side of the road are the
> terminus of the fiber. There is an example of the box, located
> approximately across the street from Ryan Rd school, in front of the gun
> club. 
> 
> Does Verizon have any reason to complete the picture? I doubt it, but your
> proposal might give them some motivation.
> 
> I found a similar situation in Hatfield. There a box is located very close
> to the start of a street. No one on the street has access to Verizon DSL or
> fiber. Once I spoke to Verizon engineering about this. There were no plans
> even to supply DSL to compete with Comcast.

DSL is "dead technology" -- Verizon is not offering *new* DSL accounts. DSL is
not meaningfully able to compete with Comcast in any case. DSL's max bandwidth
is about 3Mbits. Comcast offers better than 10 Mbits and the FCC defines
broadband as 25Mbits. The roadside boxes are just POTS (copper local-loop)
concentrators the fiber is only usable for that, it does not constitute any
sort of fiber backbone that could be used for a fiber to the home system (eg
fios).

> 
> It's all about the almighty buck. Not enough customers.
> 
> 
> Jim Ussailis
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Original email:
> -----------------
> From: Mark D. Hamill markdhamill at gmail.com
> Date: Sun, 4 Feb 2018 20:24:01 -0500
> To: Hidden-discuss at lists.hidden-tech.net
> Subject: [Hidden-tech] Northampton City Municipal Network
> 
> 
> I am looking for people on this list who reside or work in Northampton and
> would be interested in joining me to advocate to the city council for
> building a municipal network. I could try to do this myself but of course
> there is strength in numbers.
> 
> Having spoken with Mayor Narkewicz he is not against a municipal network
> and is well informed on the subject. The city even funded a study to see
> what would be involved in creating such a network. However, it doesn't
> appear to be a priority for the city as service is available via Comcast
> and there are the other usual pressing needs that cities have to deal with.
> 
> The city already has access to the telephone polls so there is nothing
> preventing it from placing fiber on these polls. In addition the city and
> apparently some local businesses in certain buildings avail themselves (or
> potentially could do so) of a fiber network the city already accesses.
> 
> Offhand I see two advantages to a municipal network: lower costs and the
> potential to build a true fiber network. A true fiber network offers lots
> of plusses including more reliability, higher speeds and huge amounts of
> bandwidth. I believe having such an infrastructure city wide would
> encourage more businesses to invest locally, increase property values,
> allow more people to work from home and perhaps offer more flexibility in
> services than Comcast can provide. It's pretty clear that Comcast sees no
> reason to invest in a true fiber optic network as it is undeniably cheaper
> to use their existing network and bilk it for everything it is worth, since
> they have virtually no competition.
> 
> Having said that a separate network is just one approach for building a
> municipal network. Here are some models:
> 
> https://muninetworks.org/sites/www.muninetworks.org/files/2017-07-Muni-Fiber
> -Models-Fact-Sheet-FINAL.pdf
> 
> I am also seeing internet service as something that should be treated as a
> utility. I suspect it is not that complex to actually set up and run such a
> network given this is all off the shelf technology now. (I'm sure deploying
> such a network is costly but the costs can be amortized over time.) As such
> I think we should think of it like gas, electricity, water and sewage:
> basic infrastructure that we should take for granted with confidence that a
> local authority will manage it competently and at a fair cost, subject to
> oversight by elected officials. We should subscribe to the services we need
> over this network with the service provider of choice, rather than prefer
> bundles available from Comcast.
> 
> I am sure there are many other advantages that some of you may know about.
> 
> Please let me know if you are interested in participating in such an
> endeavor. A group of us (hopefully with some local business owners) will
> have more of an impression on the city council than I would. First we would
> need to meet, brainstorm and figure out a plan of action.
> 
> I am a resident of Florence, an independent consultant who works from home
> and would appreciate a modern and more cost effective municipal network. I
> also like choice, and there really is none at the moment.
> 
> Mark D. Hamill
> markdhamill at gmail.com
> 
> 
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>                                               

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